Traveller from an Antique Land
by clinkeroo
Summary: More of Fleming's man, from a man who loved Fleming. Check some of my other stories if you like your Bond on the adult and literary side. Thanks to those who keep reading.


**_Traveller from an Antique Land_**

The birth of the commercial jet had created a new world after the Second World War. Airports went from fields covered with dust and smelling of oil, to being huge, multi-terminal monstrosities that dealt with millions of travellers in a sanitised, sterile world that always seemed to have a metallic, American taste no matter where one was flying about the globe.

To say that James Bond preferred to travel by train, or by sea, would be a vast understatement, and yet he was a forced denizen of this new world, a slave to the demands of the grey little building in Regent's Park.

There was no real reason for him to be hurrying back, Mary would no longer be waiting for him in London. He couldn't place too much blame on her. She'd put up with his world for much longer than most, nearly eleven months. There had been a spat before he'd left, words had been said, mostly by her. He was going to be in the States for the holidays thanks to M, cleaning up some odd and ends with the Americans. She was young, and had a young woman's needs. She wanted to marry, she wanted children, she wanted a man that would come home the same time every day, and that would be there to share her bed every evening. In the end, he had only wanted her, and that wasn't enough.

He could feel her pulling away as Christmas approached, and he didn't have the gumption to coddle her, he had his own demons to deal with at the end of each year. M had done him a favour by sending him off. Bond had wished her the best; he'd suspected there was another man in her life the last month or so, and he hoped she could find the warmth with the fellow that she'd never found with him.

The layover at Atlanta Municipal would be three and a half hours, just as scheduled, which meant he'd be tipping in the New Year waiting for American Airlines flight 910 to LaGuardia. At least there would be snow in New York.

The year was going to be 1965.

James Bond pushed through the doors of the Admiral's Club, his eyes trading the blaring fluorescent light of the terminal for the darker, softer tones of the lounge.

There were less than a dozen people scattered about the club which had been designed to house more than two-hundred and fifty. Bond knew that transient places like airports were very hectic leading up to, and away from, holidays, but once the lucky ones reached their families, these artificial weigh stations became graveyards, filled with the sad few that had no one to be with, no where to be, or no way of getting there.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he could make out a small party up at the bar. There were a couple of men wearing the loosened garb of pilots, and a group of four women that seemed to have no function other than to drape themselves about like rough cuts of meat in a butcher's shop and tinkle their false laughter for the men in uniform.

One of the women paused to look his way. She was an attractive brunette, hair cut shorter in the bob style of the day, wearing a knee length skirt that screamed stewardess. She looked him up and down, and then offered a smile, briefly meeting his gaze. After catching his eyes for a few moments, her smile faltered slightly, and he could see her visibly shiver. Slowly she turned back to the shallower, safer waters of the pilots.

Bond made his way to the back of the lounge where three chairs lay cloistered about a small bar table. As he'd come to expect from the Admiral's Clubs he'd encountered about the States, the chairs were red leather, and looked deep enough to swallow an unwary traveller.

One of the chairs was already taken by a neat looking, bespectacled man who'd already succumbed to the spell of the red leather as he lay resting, a forgotten three fingers of Gordon's in a cocktail glass condensing a ring upon the table before him.

James Bond removed his dark blue blazer and hung it over the back of an empty chair. Before sitting himself, he signalled the bartender who was helping to hold court with the pilots.

The man frowned, but quickly made his way to the table.

"Yes, Sir?" he drawled with the slow, purposeful delivery of the Southern states. The little man in the other chair stirred slightly at the words.

"I'd like an Old Fashioned, please. Angostura bitters, if you have it," he asked. The bartender nodded curtly, and hurried off to fill the order.

"British?" came the sleepy query from the man in the other seat.

"London," Bond told him.

"Hmmm," the man grumbled. "Used to live in Ash Green…in Surrey." Then he was gone again, dozing with a light snore.

Bond waited for his drink with a Moreland. When it arrived, he pursed his lips on the edge of the cool glass and drank. A little sweet, but the orange juice was fresh and the bourbon was more than passable. He closed his eyes as the alcohol worked its way through him. He could hear the laughter of the women in the distance, and the soft tones of a gentle jazz record playing over hidden speakers, but he couldn't hear the sounds of the airport that sprawled about him. No doubt it was some miracle of soundproofing that kept the lounge in its own muffled, sonic womb. But the quiet was welcome.

He took a deeper pull off the drink closed his eyes and laid back. Bond could never sleep in the open like this, but he did rest his eyes. Before too much time had passed, uneven, awkward footsteps approached the table, and a third man joined their party.

"Hope you gents don't mind a little company," the American said.

Bond opened his eyes to take in the gawky, blonde addition to their ersatz New Year's band of brothers.

"Please," he said, sitting a little more upright than before.

"Texan?" the man with the glasses grumbled.

"Ayup," the blonde fellow replied.

"Used to live in Texas," he said before turning on his side, adjusting the Tommy Nutter suit jacket he'd been using as a blanket.

Bond grinned at this last bit.

"Well travelled, I take it?" he asked.

The man opened his eyes once more and slowly sat upright, giving up on the pretence of sleep for the time being. He fiddled with his glasses for a moment, letting them come to rest naturally on his nose. His eyes were a worn hazel, and taking inventory of the wrinkles about the other man's face and the thinning brown hair, Bond realised he was much older than he'd originally thought.

"Well," the man began. "I'll mark you both a little flutter. We three are all sad enough to be spending New Year's Eve in an airport lounge, which would mean we are most likely all on business. Am I correct in this assumption?"

"Y'know," the Texan said. "With that limey accent of yours, you're a virtual Sherlock Holmes."

Bond simply nodded agreement.

"I will wager you all a round of drinks, then, on which of us has logged the most mileage."

The Texan laughed and raised a hand to summon the bartender.

"Seeing as how we're stuck here waiting for the festivities, I think it's a grand idea," the last sounded to Bond as if he'd said "idear" instead of "idea." "But I'm afraid you gentlemen have an unfair advantage on me at the moment."

The bartender arrived. The Texan ordered a Miller High Life in the bottle, and Bond had his drink freshened as well. After the new drinks had taken up residence on the table the men began to get down to the business of bonding.

"Uncle Sam employed me for nearly half my life," the Texan said. "He saw fit to send me all over this beautiful country of ours from San Bernardino to Biloxi, then he sent me to Africa to kill some Germans, and then to France to do the same. I was stationed in the latter after the war, so I figure I've made fourteen trips to France alone, by boat or by plane. I would imagine I'm a little north of 250,000 miles by now."

The bespectacled man gave a low whistle of appreciation.

"That is an accomplishment for one so young," he said, toasting the American as all three men drank. "And you sir?" he nodded toward Bond.

"I work for a shipping firm, Transworld Consortium, out of London. I have been more places than I really care to remember, although they all appear the same from inside a motel room. I do much business here in The States, as well as the Continent, and the Far East. In our American friend's terms, I think I have him beat by at least 50,000 American miles."

"Well played, Sir," the last man said, and they all drank again. "But I'm afraid I have you both nosed out. I served Her Majesty in both wars, and worked in the Foreign Service for more than a decade. I was stationed in the Federation of Malaya for most of the Emergency. All together, I've travelled more than a million kilometres for Queen and Country."

Bond and the Texan both raised their glasses to the victor, and made good over the next hour by buying a round each. The game continued, and slowly descended into a drunken row, drawing a few disproving glances from the pilots and their entourage.

They placed wagers on everything from who had the best singing voice, to who had the largest feet.

On the latter, the Texan had paused.

"Would it be alright with the both of you's if I kicked back and put my feet on the table?"

"We're all friends, here," the man with the glasses, whose name had turned out to be William, had bellowed.

The American then reached down and grasped his left leg, just below the knee, and jerked it sideways. He pulled the prosthetic limb from his now empty pant leg and placed it on the table.

There was a moment of silence as the two Englishman sat agape, and then all three erupted into the most raucous round of laughter of the evening.

As midnight approached, and with it, the New Year, the Texan made the final bet of the night and the new morning.

"Who has the prettiest lady waiting back home for him?" he had said.

Before the other two men could object, the tall, straw-haired man had removed snakeskin leather from his rear pocket and brought forth a photograph of a beautiful dark skinned woman.

"Lovely," Bond said honesty, having always shared similar tastes with his friend. Naturally, he wasn't allowed to carry any personal items beyond clothes and toiletries, and he didn't even recall if he had any photos of Mary to begin with. But he was saved by his other companion.

"I'm out on this one, Boys," William said. "I'm afraid my wife was killed last year in Malaya."

The humour quickly drained from the table.

"My God, Man," Bond said. "That's horrible, how did it happen?"

"The rebels…the Communists…they've been trying to get at us for so long. The higher up in the Commonwealth you were, the more of a target you made." William was looking down now, having removed his glasses. Bond looked away, trying to give the man some dignity.

"They stopped my wife, Maureen, and our ten year old daughter, Clare," he halted again to sob, but continued on. "They tried to make me do things, you understand? But I didn't think they would actually hurt her."

Another pause.

"People can do horrible things, Gentlemen. I've done horrible things. They made me do horrible things. But my little Clare, she's all that's left of us."

James Bond reached a hand across and placed it on the other man's knee. William had devolved now into a sobbing puddle of a man.

At the front of the lounge, the bartender, the pilots and the women, and a few stragglers who'd come in from the terminal were beginning to count down to the New Year. The bartender had a large bottle of champagne primed and ready to go, the cork between his wedged thumbs.

Bond looked to the Texan who gave a brief nod.

There was cheering, and then the pop of the cork.

Bond swiped his hand at the small cloud of smoke as he stood. The Texan also took his feet quickly, his left leg once again in place.

William was slumped back in his chair, resting even more peacefully than when Bond had arrived. James Bond reached down to snag the other man's jacket from the ground and pulled it over him once again like a blanket. He even took a moment to straighten his glasses.

The two men left quickly, saying nothing as they went. The cute, shorthaired brunette offered them each a flute as they passed the bar, her courage now boosted by a night of drinking.

"No, thank you," he told her. "We've had enough."

The girl frowned, but then piped up.

"What about your other friend?" she asked, looking to the back of the lounge where they'd been seated.

"Let him rest," the Texan told her, and they left.

They walked a while down the endless, wide sea of white tile.

"Witnessed and verified?" Bond finally said.

"Witnessed and verified," Felix Leiter replied. "And a damn shame if you ask me, James. Some days I hate this job."

Bond nodded in agreement, "Happy New Year, Felix."


End file.
